World Leaders Should Follow Pope Francis’ Lead on Climate Change

Millennial co-founder Christopher Hale has a new article at Time. He writes:

Francis’s moral authority on human ecology stretches well beyond politics. In fact, it’s Pope Francis’s populist framework on caring for God’s creation that may prove most effective in the Paris negotiations. When Francis worries about the victims of climate change, he’s more concerned about the poor and excluded—not the whales.

In his encyclical, Francis argued that there is an “intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet.” He also denounces the elitist “green rhetoric” that sometimes characterizes the climate-change debate. Today’s environmentalist, Francis argues, must hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor….

The pope’s message also gives domestic and global leaders political cover to take new actions to address climate. In September 10 House Republicans did just that, writing a resolution citing the pope in their call for their party to get serious about climate change. Pope Francis has laid the groundwork for clear and effective action in Paris….Francis has given the leaders gathered in Paris the vision and the space to make change. Now it up to the politicians to follow through.